Considering how highly lauded its predecessor is, the fact that Prince of Persia 2 seems to so be effortlessly surpassing it, after little more than six months of development time, is a minor miracle. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was critically acclaimed but commercially underperformed; this sequel has a chance to right that wrong early on with a noticeably darker and more violent adventure. The Prince is being hunted by an "immortal incarnation of Fate", who's peeved with him for mucking about with the space-time continuum in the last game and aims to make sure he won't be doing it again. Although the Prince has a number of new acrobatic moves (including the rather Errol Flynn-esque ability to shimmy down tapestries) and time attacks (such as a new fast forward move that allows him to buzz through a cluster of enemies as nothing more than a blur of light) the most important new feature in the game is a completely new combat system. Using the analogue controllers to full effect, it's now possible to incorporate your weapons, enemies and environment into a seemingly endless stream of combos as you leap behind and around bad guys, steal their weapons and turn a normal wall run into a lunging slash attack. If this game was only as good as the last one it'd still be amazing but the genuine improvements already seen should see the Prince take his rightful place as king of the action platformers. --David Jenkins

Features:- Fight against an entire island of most brutal, unrelenting monsters who exist only to torment mankind- Manipulate the environments and use your enemies against each other, for a new kind of fighting- Use the Sands Of Time from the first game in all-new ways -- create devastating new combos you create as you battle enemies